What We Leave Behind
by pupeez4eva
Summary: "Who's Damian?" "My Friend. He lives here too!" - Bruce never managed to resurrect Damian. Now, years after the Waynes have passed on, the new inhabitants of Wayne Manor meet their daughter's imaginary friend. Ghost!Damian fic.


The house was everything they could have ever wanted. Susan still couldn't believe that they could actually afford this, and she had to pinch herself sometimes, to remind herself that she wasn't dreaming, and this beautiful castle of a house was _theirs._

"It belonged to the Wayne family for centuries," the real estate agent had eagerly told them. "They were one of the richest families in Gotham. Lots of history in this house, and you won't find another one like it for this price."

The price _was_ remarkable. When she'd first heard how much it was selling for, Susan had been sure there would be some sort of catch. A place like this did not sell for a price that low. But after walking around, and taking a good look at the place, she would have been mad _not_ to take it.

And so they had, and now it was theirs. She felt an arm drape across her shoulder, and turned slightly, shooting Jack a warm smile.

"It's gorgeous, isn't it?" she murmured, and her husband nodded, placing his chin on the top of her head.

"And it's all ours."

...

This was the first time she'd noticed anything wrong since moving here.

The kids had been quick to choose their rooms, and Susan was just relieved at the sheer number of them. It averted the inevitable argument over bedrooms that seemed to arise whenever children and new homes were mixed together. Although Susan still wished that Max and Kelly had chosen rooms closer together, because walking the distance between their two rooms quickly got tiresome.

"Max, dinner," she said, knocking on her son's door. She was rewarded by a loud grunt, and walked away, deciding that he'd received the message.

She walked to Kelly's room next, and reached up to knock on the door. She paused, her hand hovering midair, and her brow furrowed. She was sure she could hear a voice — yes, there it was. It was Kelly's voice, and it sounded like she was talking to someone.

Hesitating, Susan knocked on the door lightly, and then pushed it open. Her daughter sat on the floor, crossed legged, and grinning brightly. There was no one else there.

"Kel?" Susan said, leaning against the doorframe. "Were you saying something honey?"

"I'm playing," she said, smiling brightly, showing off the new gap in her teeth. Susan found herself grinning back, because it was hard not to smile at that little ball of 8-year-old sunshine.

"Oh yeah? And what were you playing?"

"Eye spy with my little eye!"

Susan grinned. "Don't you need two people for that?"

Kelly cocked her to the side, looking adorably confused. Susan bit her lip in amusement.

"I'm playing with my friend," she said, pointing to the empty space next to her.

Susan's eyebrows rose. An imaginary friend? Well, that was new — Kelly had never mentioned anything like that before, and come to think of it, Max had never had one either. Susan didn't think she'd ever actually met a kid with an imaginary friend, but there were plenty of stories, movies and articles that mentioned them, so she didn't think it was too strange.

"Well finish up now," Susan said. "It's time for dinner."

...

The imaginary friend issue didn't come up again for a while. Susan had briefly considered telling Jack, but she honestly didn't think it was a big deal. It showed signs of an vivid imagination, which was a _good_ thing, right? Creativity and all that.

By the time Susan came across Kelly, giggling downstairs, she'd all but forgotten about it. She put the vacuum cleaner on the floor (and god, Jack was right, they really needed to hire a maid), and smiled at her daughter.

"And what are you up to?" she asked teasingly.

"Damian just talks funny," Kelly replied, giggling.

Susan's brow furrowed. "Who's Damian?"

"My friend." Kelly pointed at the empty space next to her. "He lives here too!"

Oh right — the imaginary friend. So it had a name now. And a gender too, apparently.

She shook her head frowning; this wasn't anything to be concerned about. Besides, Kelly had been struggling to make friends here, so if she found a way to entertain herself, who was Susan to argue?

She still mentioned it to Jack later on that night. Predictably, he laughed it off.

"It's normal for kids her age to have imaginary friends," he told her, amused. "I had one too."

Susan's eyebrows raised. "Seriously?"

"Oh yeah. Big blue dog named Mr. Fuzzball. He disappeared when my parents finally bought me a real dog."

"So what'll it take to get rid of Damian?"

She'd tried phrasing it as a joke, but it sounded more serious than she'd intended.

Jack nudged her playfully. "Don't worry about it. She's just having some fun. If you're really that worried, I'm sure Damian will find a new friend to bother once Kel goes back to school."

...

It shouldn't have bothered her so much, but there was just something unsettling about the whole situation. She tried to put it out of her mind though, because Jack clearly wasn't bothered by it, and she didn't want to be the overly paranoid mum, who bubble wrapped their kids to protect them from the world (the external and internal world in this case).

Kelly seemed to be more withdrawn lately, more quiet, but Susan honestly didn't know if it was all just her imagination. No one else had noticed anything, and Kelly hadn't said anything, so Susan had kept quiet.

After what happened that day though, it was a little hard to maintain ignorance.

Max had had a fight with the neighbors' kid. Susan wasn't sure exactly how it had happened, but she wasn't happy. This was a new home for them, a new start, and Max starting fights was honestly the last thing they needed. She'd told him to go to his room, and he'd yelled back, and then it had launched into a full-blown argument.

"Max I swear, I am _not_ in the mood! Go to your room _right_ now — "

She grabbed his shoulder — and all she'd intended to do was steer him towards the staircase — when Kelly had come bursting out of the kitchen, her eyes wide and terrified.

"Don't hurt him!" she shrieked. "Don't hurt him, don't hurt him!"

Susan jerked away, staring at her daughter in shock. Even Max seemed surprised, his furious rant cutting off abruptly as he turned to stare at his little sister.

"Honey," Susan said, kneeling in front of Kelly, "I wasn't going to hurt him. You know I'd never do that." Kelly sniffed, and Susan swallowed, feeling compelled to say something _more._ Her daughter should never feel as if either her or Jack would ever lay a hand on them. "Moms are supposed to love their kids, not hurt them."

Kelly sniffed. _"Damian's_ mama hurt him."

Susan felt a chill run down her back.

"What do you mean, honey?" she asked warily. "Why would you think that?"

"He told me," Kelly said, rubbing her eyes. "That's why he's like how he is."

"Like what?"

"Why he can't leave."

Susan swallowed, and straightened. She turned to Max, who was staring at Kelly, his brow furrowed.

"Go upstairs, okay?" she said, and hoped to hell he wouldn't argue. To her relief, he went upstairs without further argument.

She turned back to Kelly. "Kel, what else did Damian tell you?" she asked. "About his mum hurting him?"

Because imaginary friends may have been 'normal' but there was no way this was. Susan didn't know where Kelly had gotten these ideas from, or how they had manifested in the form of her imaginary friend (she tried to ignore that niggling thought, _'if that's what this is…'),_ but she didn't like it.

"She was angry. And she let him get hurt." Kelly lowered her gaze to the floor, her lip trembling. "And now he can't leave. But he's family's gone. He misses them a lot."

Susan swallowed. "Oh?"

"Yeah. He had dog, like we have Emma, only his was _huge._ And he lived here with his daddy and his butler, and he had brothers and sisters. But there all gone now, and he misses them."

Susan stared at her daughter, trying to ignore that strange, tightening feeling in her chest, and that feeling that something was dreadfully wrong. She tried her best to smile, and pat Kelly gently on the shoulder.

"Go get ready for lunch, honey," she said. "Don't worry about it too much. You know I'd never hurt you right?"

"I know," Kelly said. "I'm sorry. I'm just sad because Damian doesn't have a mommy like you."

Susan smiled again, awkwardly, because she wasn't sure what else to say. She tried not to feel too relieved when Kelly turned around and ran upstairs, happy again in a way only a child could be.

...

"I'm telling you, this is serious!"

"I _know_ it's serious," Jack bit back. "But yelling at me isn't going to do anything about it! I'm going to go speak to the Craig's tomorrow — Kelly started saying this stuff after she came back from playing with their kid, I'm _sure_ that had something to do with it."

"It's not that," Susan sighed, running a hand through her hair, frustrated. "She's been off all week and…there's something not right here."

"Sue, she had to have heard those things somewhere," Jack reasoned. He sat at the edge of the bed, frowning. "She didn't just make it up herself."

"I know but…"

Susan shook her head, and sat down next to him. It just didn't seem right. It should have made sense — Kelly was eight, she shouldn't have known about things like that unless she'd heard them from someone else. But there was just something wrong about that theory, and her mind was screaming that she was _missing something._

"I'll come too," she told Jack, even though she knew it wouldn't do anything. "And we'll have a chat to her tomorrow."

...

Kelly went missing the next day.

Susan had knocked on her daughter's door, expecting her to be in her room. That's where she had been the last time she'd seen her, playing on the floor with her dolls, with _Damian_ nowhere in sight. But when she walked inside, the room was empty, and Susan felt her heart hammer violently in her chest.

Perhaps it was an overreaction — it was a big house, and Kelly could have just left the room to get a snack from the kitchen, perhaps — but somehow she knew something was wrong. She'd left the room, yelling Kelly's name, and Jack and Max had come out, alerted by the noise.

Kelly was nowhere to be seen. After running around frantically, scouring the house as best she could (dammit, _why_ did this house have to be so huge?), she'd run outside, jogging around expanses of the property she hadn't even known existed.

When she finally found Kelly, it took her a while to realise that her daughter was standing in a _cemetery_. She felt her chest squeeze painfully, and she rushed forward.

"Kelly!" she yelled, grabbing her daughter, and pulling her into a hug. She was panting frantically. "Where have you _been?!_ I was so worried dammit!"

Kelly pulled away, her lip wobbling. "I just wanted to look," she said quietly. "I didn't mean to make you mad!"

Susan swallowed. "You can't just run off like that honey," she said, feeling tears sting her eyes. "We've all been so worried."

We need to go back, she thinks absently. Jack will be worried to death by now, she needs to go home and tell him that Kelly's okay —

Instead, she places her hands on Kelly's shoulders, and quietly asks, "Kel, what are you doing down here?"

"Damian used to come here," Kelly said, avoiding her gaze. "He said it's relaxing. I just wanted to see. I've never been here before."

 _'It's a cemetery,'_ Susan thinks, _'of course you've never been here before.'_

How had she not known there was a cemetery on the property? She glances down at the gravestones Kelly had been standing next to. The first one read 'Thomas Wayne', and the second 'Martha Wayne.'

So this was probably the Wayne family cemetery then. It was strange standing here — unsettling almost — surrounded by the people who had once lived in their home.

She stepped away from her daughter, and glanced at the headstones. Even though she tried to deny it, she knew exactly what she was looking for.

Her eyes flew to Bruce Wayne's headstone first (the last of the Wayne family who'd lived in this home, according to the real estate agent. Lived here his whole life, and had died here), before landing on the one she'd been looking for. The one she'd known would be here.

Damian Wayne.

She stared at it for a few moments, her chest heavy. Her eyes ran over the dates — _ten years, he'd been ten years old when he'd died_ — and then turned, slipping her hand into Kelly's.

"Let's go," she said quietly. She walked away, hand in hand with her daughter, and felt the hairs raise at the back of her neck. She felt as if someone was watching.

She didn't look behind her again. She didn't want to see the row of headstones — _Damian Wayne, beloved son and brother. He'd only been 10 years old when he'd died, oh god_ — and so she kept walking.

...

Susan only saw Damian once, on the day they left the manor.

She couldn't stay after that. Somehow she didn't think Damian was malicious, or that he meant them any harm, but she just didn't feel like this was _their_ home anymore. It was his home.

Surprisingly enough, Jack didn't argue when she told him they needed to leave. Maybe he knew something was wrong too.

She saw Damian for the first time as she stood by the open doorway, preparing to leave the manor for the final time. She'd turned — not sure why exactly; perhaps to take a final look at the place that had been her home that short period of time, or perhaps because she knew what she'd see — and saw him standing by the staircase, watching her.

God, he was so _young._ He was only just a little bit taller than Kelly, and stared at her with solemn blue eyes. His clothing was strange — a red and yellow costume — but what caught her attention was the gaping wound in his torso.

 _'Oh god. Oh my god, what happened to you?'_

His face remained blank as he stared at her. She met his eyes and wondered what he was thinking — was he happy that they were finally gone, that he had his home back? Was he disappointed to see Kelly going?

 _("His family's gone. He misses them a lot")._

"Bye, Damian," she said quietly, and then turned around, and shut the door.

...

She looked him up later on. Damian Wayne had been the son of billionaire Bruce Wayne. His mother was unknown. He'd come to live with his father shortly before he'd died.

His death was unexplained.

Susan stared at the computer screen, and thought of the gaping wound in that small torso, and looked away.

That night, she made sure to hug Max and Kelly extra tight before they went off to bed.

 **...**

 **AN:**

 **Soooo because it's October, and that means that Halloween is fast approaching (yay!) I've decided to write a bunch of Halloween/horror-themed fics throughout this month. This is the first one, and I really hope you enjoyed it! If you have any prompts for halloween/horror fics you'd like to see me write, post them in the comment section, or send me a message!  
**

 **This was more of a serious fic, but I've got a couple of fics planned, and they're a mixture of more serious fics, scary fics, and my favourite genre to write - humor. I'll be writing a bunch of these throughout this month in the lead-up to Halloween :)**

 **Also, this story refers to Damian's death in Batman Incorporated #8; however in this case, Bruce didn't manage to find a way to resurrect him. Also, while Talia may not have outright ordered the Heretic to kill him, I got the sense that he believed she was behind it, or at least knew what was happening to him, so that's why I've mentioned it in the story.**

 **Hope you enjoyed it!**


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